Stories of Trauma: The Relationship between Narrative Elaboration and PTSD Público

Abstract

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) develops as a result of a specific traumatic event and the disorder can have devastating consequences on mental wellbeing and social functioning. PTSD is highly related to memory; symptoms include intrusive flashback memories of the traumatic event, as well difficulty voluntarily recalling the specific traumatic event. Little is known about how traumatic memories are expressed over time and how that expression relates to PTSD, which could provide insight into PTSD development. The current study aims to investigate the relationship between narrative elaboration and symptoms of PTSD. Narratives from 68 participants were collected as a part of the Grady Trauma Project after participants were recruited at the Grady Emergency Department. Narratives were collected at two time points: first, within hours of the trauma and again a year later. Additional measures of baseline trauma experience were collected at the time of trauma and PTSD symptom measures were collected at 1-month and 12-month follow-ups. Narratives were coded for factual and interpretive elaboration in order to assess two types of detail within the narratives over time. Overall, we found that both factual and interpretive elaboration increased over time. Factual elaboration was significantly higher than interpretive elaboration over time. Further, increases in factual elaboration was significantly positively correlated with PTSD symptoms at 12-months. This result could reflect increased intrusive, highly detailed memories characteristic of PTSD. The result does not support the theory that PTSD memories are fragmentary and incoherent and suggests that traumatic memories that result in PTSD may be expressed with increased factual detail over time.

Table of Contents

Introduction……………………………………………………………………….……………….....1

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)………………………………………………...….1

PTSD and Memory…………………………………….…………………………….................4

Narratives and Wellbeing….……………………………………………………………..........7

Narratives of Trauma and Wellbeing…………………………………………………........8

The Current Study…………….…………………………………….…………………...........…11

Predictions………….…………………………………….……………………………..............…11

Method……………………………………………………………………………………….......…....12

Participants…………………………………………………………………………...…..............12

Procedure………….…………………………………….………………………………...............13

Measures………………………………………………………………………………..................13

Coding of Narratives and Reliability………………………………...…………………....14

Results……………………………………………………………………………………….......….…16

Descriptive Statistics………….…………………………………….………………......…...…16

Narratives Over Time………….…………………………………………….……….....….....16

Narratives Over Time and PTSD Symptoms……………………………….………..…17

Discussion……………………………………………………………………………………….......18

Implications and Future Directions ………...…………………………………………….25

References………….………………………………...….………………………………………...28

Tables and Figures …………………………………………………………………………..….31

About this Honors Thesis

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School	Emory College
Department	Psychology
Degree	BA
Submission	Honors Thesis
Language	English
Research Field	Psychology, General Health Sciences, Mental Health
Palabra Clave	Elaboration Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder PTSD Narrative Elaboration Detail Narrative Civilian Trauma Trauma
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Fivush, Robyn, Emory University
Committee Members	Sarrett, Jennifer C, Emory University Kazama, Andrew Masami, Emory University

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